Chasing the Wolf
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
Nathan Singer
Nathan Singer is a novelist, playwright, composer, and experimental performing artist. He is also the lead vocalist and guitarist for award-winning band The Whiskey Shambles. His published novels are the controversial and critically acclaimed A Prayer for Dawn, Chasing the Wolf, In the Light of You, The Song in the Squall, Transorbital, and Blackchurch Furnace. He currently lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he is working on a multitude of new projects.
Read more from Nathan Singer
A Prayer For Dawn Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn the Light of You Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Blackchurch Furnace Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTransorbital Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Song in the Squall Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Chasing the Wolf
Related ebooks
Don't Touch Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Love & Roses Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Liar Liar: A Nicole Graves Mystery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKen Venturi: Trust Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStraight White Male: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Informal Boston Education: Boston Boomers, Beaches, Buddies, Broads, Bars, Beer, Baseball, and Barbells Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hide Away: An Adam Dutton & Beverly Laborde Mystery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Violet Hour: Hoskins & Fletcher Crime Series, #5 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRiptide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complication: A Camille Delaney Mystery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFortunate Son: A Novel of the Greatest Trial in Irish History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Road Runners: Wealth of Time Prequel, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Exoskeleton Chronicles Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Chinaman Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKilling Time: mystery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Missing Piece: Hoskins & Fletcher Crime Series, #4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Down Side, Book 4 in the John Keegan Mystery Series Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTEMPTATION TOWN: The Jack Barnett / Las Vegas Series, #1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Intent to Kill: A Novel of Suspense Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Never Give a Millionaire an Even Break Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5All the Flowers Are Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Retribution Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTropical Depression Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dead Pool Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAll In A Day's Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All in a Row (Book 2 in the John Keegan Mystery Series) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Suitor: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Billy Jo McCabe Mystery Box Set Books 4: 6 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSuspended Retribution: A Spellbinding Serial Killer Thriller Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNo Going Back Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Literary Fiction For You
Prophet Song: A Novel (Booker Prize Winner) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Piranesi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Demon Copperhead: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave the World Behind: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Pride and Prejudice: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Woman in the Room: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Handmaid's Tale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Birds: Erotica Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alchemist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lagos Wife: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Who Have Never Known Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tender Is the Flesh Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Queen's Gambit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invisible Hour: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sympathizer: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Thinking of Ending Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master & Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Ugly and Wonderful Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Chasing the Wolf
2 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Chasing the Wolf - Nathan Singer
PART ONE
MIDNIGHT CREEPIN’
It was enough to make yo’ son, mama, wish he’s dead and gone.
—ROBERT WILKINS
WHEN I’M UPSET, BLOOD LEAKS FROM MY HEAD. That’s the truth—I’m not trying to bullshit you. I don’t know if you folks even use bullshit
as a verb. At all. Oh well. When I’m over the edge, my gums bust open and my nose bleeds and the whites of my eyes get little red polka dots on them. I only mention that because my eyes really hurt right now. They probably look like crimson marbles with black holes in the middle. It’s been a stressful couple of days. I’ve been hiding out in these woods since I got here. I stole this paper and these pencils from a schoolhouse two miles that way. I wish there had been paints instead. Don’t really write normally. Just writing this to keep from going totally Bellevue. I don’t even know if anyone will ever read this.
My name is Eli Cooper. I’m a twenty-seven year old neo-postimpressionist,
or so I’m told. If Edvard Munch and Jackson Pollock had a child and so on. Anyway, I am—was—the toast of the Village back home. I had the freshest agent, the dopest shows in the choiceest galleries, the flyest reviews … I could clean my brushes on an old T-shirt and the Voice would call it "The boldest statement in art since Piss Christ." I had the smartest friends. I had the prettiest wife—
My nose is bleeding.
So you’re probably wondering what NYC’s flashiest flash-in-the-pan of the new millennium is doing stranded in the backwoods of Mississippi in 1938. So am I. So am I. So am I. So am I. There goes my nose again.
DONTPANIC
BACK HOME I had just been hired to do a jacket piece for this noise punk outfit, The Sleepy October. I hate them. I hate that whole bullshit scene. No-talent fucks.
We’re all about shifting into a new punk paradigm,
their junkie slut lead singer told me. Horrid. HORRID!
But my agent Marcus pushed it on me.
"We can reach the teen market, Eli! he’d say.
Like street cred with bigger payoff." Like that means something to me. I’m a tortured artist or whatever. I’ve got a reputation to think about.
I only took the whore job because Jessie wanted a bigger apartment. Jessie’s my wife. Jessie Davis-Cooper. My mahogany queen. My little bitty pretty one. She’s a dancer with an African drum and dance troupe. Neo-tribalist.
Everybody’s neo
in NYC. Go figure.
You should grab this opportunity,
she’d say. You’d be a crazy not to. We can have a whole new life. We deserve it, Li-la.
Li-la. Miss that already.
So yeah, I detest the New York noise scene. I love the old stuff (well … I guess it’s not old to you). Big Mama Thornton. Duke Ellington. Billie Holiday. Son House … Howlin’ Wolf. (Howlin’ Wolf. Something weird about Howlin’ Wolf …) I’d put on some scratchy old jazz or blues compilation LP and Jess would laugh at me.
But after a refrain or two, hell yeah, she’d start to dance. God. Her dancing … like no one else. Wish I could see her now.
GODDAMN BOILING fucking hot here. Covered in a layer of slime and grit. The air is not even humid. It’s solid. Like breathing casserole. Try to sleep. Sleep it off. Sleep it away. Maybe wake up somewhere else. Good night, Jessie. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to say good-bye.
THE EMPEROR’S FUCKING NAKED, BABY!
That’s what I told her.
The emperor is fucking naked.
Li-la, don’t be such a dramatic. Do this cover art, and—
—And what? Burn in
Sell-out Hell for all eternity?
You call it
Sell-out Hell, I call it a phat Soho co-op and no worries. Tomato, tomahto.
"Jess, have you heard this music?"
Oh, let me guess. It doesn’t sound like Bessie Smith or Robert Nighthawk or Skip James and they don’t record in mono into a tin horn. Right? I swear, Li-la, you are an old man trapped in a young man’s body. No, scratch that. You are an old BLACK man trapped in a white boy’s body.
Marcus is just trying to turn me into the next—
"Marcus is a good agent and he wants what’s best for you and you know it. I’m asking you, please, just this once. Take this one whore job and I’ll never ask for anything ever again. You’d be a crazy not to grab this opportunity."
‘Crazy’ is an adjective, sweetheart. Not a noun.
She always did that. No idea why.
It could be the start of something great. This could be your chance. We could have a whole new life.
I know.
I know.
We deserve it.
It’s just … shallow.
What is?
All this stuff. Meaningless. Hipper-than-thou drivel. Fake plastic hash. Gives you cancer of the spirit. I hate it.
You hate everything. You want to leave New York?
I didn’t say that.
Where would be ‘deep’ enough for you, Mr. Neo-post-impressionism?
Deep enough for me. Where would be deep enough for me …
You’re my angel, Jessie. My little bitty pretty one.
You’re my little school boy. Inlovewitchoo, Li-la Delila.
Inlovewitchoo too.
THE NIGHT I WAS WORKING on the album art for those Warhol-loving twats The Sleepy October, Jessie had a gig down at the Burroughs Theater. Two weeks past my deadline, you know? She understood.
I should be there. It’s opening night.
There will be plenty of other shows. There will be plenty of other opening nights, Mr. Takin’-My-Time.
The piece was turning out pretty decent. Sort of Baconesque, but not overtly derivative. (Anybody who can accept a concept like neo-post-impressionism
should be able to accept any bucketful of dog snot splattered on a canvas.) I fell asleep on my tarp sometime after midnight. I was awakened all covered in paint by the sound of the phone ringing and my friend Serj screaming on the answering machine—
Li?! Oh shit Li! You gotta get down to St. Luke’s!!! It’s Jess! There’s been a terrible—
I grabbed the first cab that stopped and busted ass to the hospital.
But I—
was too late.
always too late hours too late I was two hours too always too late
Backstage at the Burroughs Theater, a riser had fallen on Jess and broken her spine.
My baby’s dead.
My baby girl’s dead.
My little bitty pretty …
I don’t fucking feel like writing anymore
THEY COULDA KEPT THE WHOLE GODDAMN THING the whole fucking piece of shit goddamn art crowd nonsense didn’t mean a goddamn anything. I’d do anything … never needed to be an artist wasn’t a calling it was a skill a trade like jack hammering or something I’d work a day shift at Dunkin Donuts + a night shift dishing out blowjobs at the Manhole in Chicago to HAVE HER BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
please goddamn it
PLEASE ANYTHING
please anything
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY?!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
OKAY.
Calmer now.
When I finally got to the hospital … they said she never felt a thing because she never woke up. I started spitting and screaming like—
I was possessed. I tried to strangle myself with my dreadlocks and I tried to bash my head into a wall but Serj and Amie and these two big orderlies grabbed onto me and I finally wriggled free and went screaming out into the streets.
I was hoping a car would hit me.
No luck.
I ran in whatever direction my boots would lead me. Somebody fucking kill me.
I finally fell over and passed out in the grass. I thought I was in Central Park.
Don’t know if I was or not.
When I woke up, it looked like I was right smack dab in the middle of Monet’s Poppy Fields. I wandered into the woods and found a noose hanging from a tree branch. I tried reaching for it. Too weak.
Gave up.
I slammed my left temple into the tree trunk, but that only made me nauseous.
As I sat there crying like a damn infant, this little kid wanders up to me. Little Black kid in brown rags that looked at least two sizes too small for him. I said Hi
and he ran off screaming about a monster a monster.
I probably do look like some sort of Medusa-creature with these long knots hanging off my head. And the piercings and all. Well, figuring somebody with a shotgun would probably be following the kid back, I took off. Don’t know why. So eager to end it all just minutes before. Go figure.
Night after night I would sneak around trying to find a decent place to sleep and figure out where the fuck I was. During that thunderstorm a couple of nights ago, after completely freaking out some horses sleeping in a barn up by the creek, I found the schoolhouse where I got these pencils and whatnot. Under the teacher’s desk was a newspaper. Clarion-Ledger.
Under the header, it read:
Thursday, July 7, 1938.
That’s how I found myself here with you good people.
I don’t understand it either.
SO WHAT DO I DO NOW?
My grandparents are teenagers.
I think I’ll go hunt them down and kill them.
Just to see what happens.
I KNOW IF ANY OF YOU FIND THESE PAGES, you’ll hunt me down and string me up. Or put me in the nervous hospital.
Fine with me. But you’re gonna have to catch me first.
HOW
DID
THIS
HAPPEN
?
KEEP HAVING WEIRD FLASHES OF THAT NIGHT. That night.
Fell asleep on the tarp. In the paint. Tripped when I heard Serj on the machine.
GOTTAWAKEUPNOW!
Tripped again running down the stairs. Cabs won’t stop.
STOP MOTHERFUCKERS!
I was two hours too always too late.
GODDAMN THIS!
It will never never never never go away!! I’m fucking trapped in it!!!!!!!
This one moment. I’m trapped forever in this moment. oh god gotta get it together gotta gotta get it get it—
ALL RIGHT NOW. I. Am. Adequately. Chilled. Out.
When I finally got a cab to pick me up, this bag lady walked right in front of the car and stopped and stood there. Just stopped and stared at our brownstone. She was carrying boards or canvas or some shit and I’m screaming at the cabbie and he’s screaming at the lady—
Move yer black ass, heifer!
DRIVE YOU BASTARD DRIVE!!! White—bonnet—thing.
She was wearing some white and brown smock lookin’ dress and a little white head-wrap bonnet lookin’ deal.
She ran off and this bearded guy starts spraying and wiping the windshield.
The bearded guy had on a green slicker.
Of all the things to remember.
I tripped on the stairs at the hospital too.
Never even got the chance to say good-bye.
MISSISSIPPI. Center of the universe.
JULY 10, 1938
May as well make this a journal. Nobody will ever read this shit anyway. I appear to be just on the outskirts of West Point, Mississippi. Right outside of the downtown
area which sure as hell doesn’t look like much. B and E is getting to be second nature. There are no alarms on anything and I don’t take enough to arouse suspicion. Some soap here, some shoes there. A shirt here, the pants somewhere else. Little bits of money at every stop. Last night I stole a suitcase. Also made off with a state map. Looks like ferries run out of Natchez. Could be useful. How many goddamn towns are in this state? I’ll probably get rid of the map. Can’t read it too well anyway. Gotta try and find a national map. See what’s north.
I’ve made the decision to try and make my way during the daylight when there are folks around. Blend in. Assimilate. When I get my moxie up, of